Your grandchild Elizabeth stood on the altar
- you died long before she was born or the church built -
and read verses you wrote forty years ago
about death and rebirth, winter and spring
in front of your son Laurence's coffin,
he dead at seventy four, she stunned with grief
beautiful too as she read your lines
to the congregation. A child
cried, Mammy I want to go home.
Laurence's sons lifted his coffin heavily
onto their shoulders, conveyed him through incense
out of the church, down the hill, under dark skies,
hedges dripping silently, tarmac glistening,
up the wet gravel road to Caragh graveyard.
He lies near his brothers Edward, Arthur, John,
a short stroll from the old graveyard
where you await resurrection
by Robinsons' field.
Published, 2000, in Snakeskin, February issue
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